This result may surprise many not conversant with the profits which are constantly being realized from small farms. But rejecting the income from the sale of plants, the pigs, and the calf, as exceptional things, and the profit of the nine acres for the first year will be found to be nothing per acre, for the second year, $83.50, and for the third, $129.10. But there are obvious reasons why this should be so. The ground was crowded to its utmost capacity with those plants only which yielded the very highest rate of profit, and for which there was an unfailing demand. In addition to this, it was cultivated with the most unflagging industry and care. Besides using the contents of more than one barnyard upon it, I literally manured it with brains. My whole mind and energies were devoted to improving and attending to it. No city business was ever more industriously or intelligently supervised than this. But if the reward was ample, it was no greater than others all around me were annually realizing, the only difference being that they cultivated more ground. While they diffused their labor over twenty acres, I concentrated mine on ten. Yet, havingonly half as much ground to work over, I realized as large a profit as the average of them all. Concentrated labor and manuring thus brought the return which is always realized from them when intelligently combined.
For six years since 1857 I have continued to cultivate this little farm. Sometimes an unpropitious season has cut down my profits to a low figure, but I have never lost money on the year’s business. Now and then a crop or two has utterly failed, as some seasons are too dry, and others are too wet. But among the variety cultivated some are sure to succeed. Only once or twice have I failed to invest a few hundred dollars at the year’s end. All other business has been studiously avoided. I have spent considerable money in adding to the convenience of my dwelling, and the extent of my outbuildings; among the latter is a little shop furnished with more tools than are generally to be found upon a farm, which save me many dollars in a year, and many errands to the carpenter and wheelwright. The marriage of my daughter Kate called for a genteel outfit, which she received without occasioning me any inconvenience. I buy nothing on credit, and for more than ten years have had no occasion to give a note. If at the year’s end we are found to owe any thing at the stores, it is promptly paid. As means increased, my family has lived more expensively, though I think not any more comfortably. I lie down peacefully at night, thinking that I do not deserve more than others, but thankful that God has given me more. I rise in the morning with anappetite for labor as keen as that for breakfast. But others can succeed as well as myself. Capital or no capital, the proper industry and determination will certainly be rewarded by success.
ASpreviously stated, there is no successful farming without a liberal expenditure for manure. I had proved that high manuring would pay, and while anxious to increase the quantity, was desirous of reducing the money-cost. I continued every season to scour the neighborhood for leaves, and to gather up every available material for the barnyard. But in addition to all this, in October and November of my fourth year I purchased twenty heifers which would calve in the spring, intending to feed them through the winter, and then sell as soon as they had calved. My idea was, that they could be sold for a profit large enough to cover the cost of keeping them, thus having the manure all clear. I consulted many persons versed in this business, farmers, butchers, and others, before venturing on it, as it was a good deal out of my usual line of operations. I also consulted all my files of agricultural papers, where I found set forth a multitude of experiences on the subject, the most of which led me to conclude that it would be safe to try the experiment. There seemed to be but little danger of loss, even if nothing were made, while it was quite certain a good deal of knowledge would be gained.
I accordingly had a rough shed built, large enough to contain twenty cows, with an entry in front of them and a large feed-room at one end. Then mangers were provided, and a plank gutter laid just back of where the cows would stand, into which all the droppings would fall, and down which the water would run into a wide earthen pipe which emptied into the cistern in the barnyard. Here the cows stood in a row, never being allowed to go out, except an hour or two at noon when the weather was fine. I agreed with Dick to take entire charge of the feeding and watering them, for the consideration of $30 extra. I bought the cornstalks from some twenty acres near me, at $3 an acre, and these were delivered from time to time as they were needed, there not being room on the premises for so large a quantity at once. I had provided a superior cutter, with which Dick cut up the stalks and blades, reducing them to pieces a half-inch long, and he then put them into a hogshead of water, where they remained a day and night to soak. Thence they were transferred to a steaming apparatus, constructed expressly for this purpose, where they were made perfectly soft. Corn meal, bran, and various kinds of ground feed were mixed in and steamed with the cut stalks, a sprinkling of salt being added. A day’s feed for the whole twenty was cooked at one operation. This preparation came out soft and palatable, and the cows took to it greedily. The ground feed was varied during the season, and occasionally a few turnips, parsnips, and cabbages were cooked up to increase the variety. I had no hay to give them, and they got none.
But on the other hand, Dick gave them four good strong messes every day, that at night being a very heavy one. He said they throve as well as any cattle he had ever seen. The gutter behind them was cleaned out twice a day and sprinkled with plaster, thus keeping the place always clean and sweet. In fact, I made cleanliness the order of the day throughout the entire barnyard. The manure was thrown directly from the gutter into a wheelbarrow having a thick layer of leaves spread over its bottom, and then emptied in a heap under the manure shed. As the cows were also littered with leaves, these, when too foul for longer use, were taken to the same heap. Others were added, with cornstalks in occasional layers; and as each layer was deposited, the whole heap was saturated with liquor from the cistern. I do not think a better lot of common barnyard manure has ever been manufactured. Dick entered into the spirit of the experiment, and carried it through without once faltering.
As soon as the cows began dropping their calves in the spring, I advertised them, and plenty of purchasers appeared, as a choice out of twenty was of some value. They had cost me $22 each. I had kept them an average of one hundred and forty days for each cow, at a cost of six cents per day for each, or $8.40, making with the first cost $30.40 per cow, or $608 for the whole. To this was added $60 for cornstalks and $40 for Dick, making a grand total of $708. I sold them at an average of $35.50, and thus realized $710, or a cash profit of $2. Instead of paying Dick $30 for his trouble, I told the fellowthat as he had performed his duty so satisfactorily, he should have $40. This little voluntary contribution so gratified him, that I feel assured its value has been refunded to me fourfold, by his subsequent attention as a professor of the art and mystery of manufacturing manure.
Thus I made $2 in cash by the operation, besides having a great quantity of cornstalks left over, and a pile of manure certainly as ample as any for which I had paid $250. Moreover, it was on my own premises; it had been most carefully attended to during the whole process of manufacture; I knew what it was composed of, and that the seeds of noxious weeds could not have been added to it. All these facts gave it value over the chance lots which farmers are often compelled to purchase, and from which their fields are many times sowed with thousands of weeds. Here was a clear saving of $250 added to my profits.
The result was so encouraging, that I have continued the practice of thus feeding cattle during the winter from that day to this, increasing the number, however, to twenty-five. I find no difficulty in making sales in the spring. Sometimes I have lost a few dollars on a winter’s operations, sometimes made a little profit, and sometimes come out just even. On the run of four years there has been no profit beyond the manure; but that much is all clear. Thus the winter, instead of being a season of suspended profits as formerly, is now one of positive gain. The operation of thus feeding cattle is certainly attended with trouble. But once providedwith all the conveniences for carrying it on, it is not only simple and easy, but becomes even interesting. No one who has not tried it in a careful, methodical way, can have any idea of the rapidity with which the manure heaps grow, nor the size to which they ultimately attain. My neighbors having long since ceased to be amused at what they facetiously called the novelty of my operations, did not venture to ridicule even this. On the contrary, they rather approved of it, though not one of them could tell how much it cost to keep a cow per week. But I impute no part of my success to their approval. The practice is intrinsically a good one, and only needs being carried on properly to make it pay.
Let me add, that there is a very cheap and convenient mode of covering manure from the weather, which I have constantly practised, thus avoiding the cost of building sheds. I took inch boards which were sixteen feet long, and sawed them in half, making two lengths, each eight feet. The boards were as wide as could be had, say twenty inches. Battens were then nailed across each end and the centre, to prevent warping. Then to each end a board of equal width, and five feet long, was secured by strap hinges. The manure heap was then built up, say five feet high, and eight wide at the top. When thus finished, one of the boards was placed across the top; the ends being hinged, fell down, over the sides of the heap, and touched the ground. Beginning at one end of the heap, the hinged boards were laid on until they reached to the other end. Thus the entire heap, except the ends, was completelyprotected from the weather. The ends were covered with loose boards. Whenever rain was coming on, and it was thought the heap needed water to prevent fire-fanging, this portable shed was lifted off in five minutes. After receiving a good soaking, the shed was in five more minutes replaced on the heap; and when no composting was going on, the boards were simply stowed away in some by-place until again wanted. To those who believe in the value of housing manure, but who cannot afford to erect buildings for the purpose, these portable sheds will be found, for $10, to be as effectual as a building costing $60, while at the same time they do not occupy any useful ground.
I will not say that ten acres in New Jersey can be made to produce more money than ten acres located elsewhere, within reach of the great city markets. Without doubt, the productiveness of either tract will be in exact proportion to the care and skill of cultivation, and the thoroughness of manuring. In either case, it is utter folly for a man to attempt the cultivation of more land than he can manage thoroughly. The chances are then invariably against him. I consider the real office of the ground to be merely that of holding a plant in an erect position, while you feed the roots. But it is nevertheless remarkable that the census tables show that the product of New Jersey per acre, when the whole area of the State is taken into account, is considerably greater than in any of the adjoining States. The product per acre, in some of the fruit-growingcounties nearest the two great cities, is even more remarkable. The average cash value of the products of all our market gardens is $20 annually, while that of the gardens in New York and Pennsylvania is only $5 each. Of our orchards it is $25, while in New York it is only $10, and in Pennsylvania only $5. The value of agricultural implements and machinery is relatively far greater than in either of these empire States. Nothing short of a superior productiveness for truck and fruit, in the soil of New Jersey, can account for such results.
A farmer in my neighborhood sold from forty early apple-trees, occupying about one acre of land, 400 baskets of fruit, which yielded, after deducting expenses, and ten per cent. commission for selling, $241.50. I have known pears to be sold at from $3 to $5 per basket, and in smaller quantities at $2 a half-peck; and three cherry-trees, of the early Richmond variety, yielded $30 worth of fruit. Peach-trees, when protected from the worm, will bear luxuriantly for twenty years.
I know a small farmer, with six acres of rhubarb, who has realized $600 dollars annually from it. Another has twenty acres of asparagus, from which he realizes $600 per week during the season for cutting. Besides, it grows an acre of common gooseberries, from which his annual profit is $200. I have known another to sell $500 worth of tomatoes from a single acre, besides having many bushels for the hog-pen. I could name owners of very small tracts who are doing well in the same business. Asparagus, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries,currants, grapes, and gooseberries, grow to perfection, and yield enormous returns when properly attended to, far surpassing any thing ever obtained from the heavier staple crops, such as grain, grass and stock.
But it is to be noticed that the greatest profit per acre is almost invariably realized by those who have very small farms. The less they have, the more thoroughly is it cultivated; while the few who have sufficient faith in manure, and who thus convert their entire holding into a garden, realize twice or thrice as much per annum as they had paid for the land. I knew a striking illustration of the value of this faith in manure. It is in the person of a Jerseyman who began, twenty-five years ago, upon a single acre of rented land, with a capital of only $50, borrowed from a sister who had saved it from her earnings as a dairymaid. This man regarded the earth as of no practical use except to receive and hold manure; and his idea was, that if he crowded it full enough, every rain would extract from it, and convey directly to the roots of the plants, the liquid nutriment which gives to all vegetation such amazing vigor. Thus, the solids, if in sufficient supply, would be sure to furnish the liquids, on which he knew he could rely. Though full of original and practical ideas, this was his absorbing one; and he pursued it with an energy of purpose and a liberality of expenditure that surprised the population of an entire township.
In spite of the disadvantages attendant on a neglected education, the force of this man’s strong naturalsense carried him forward with astonishing rapidity. True to his faith in manure, he bought and manufactured to an extent far exceeding all his neighbors. He soon obtained possession of a small farm, with ample time allowed for payment; for his industry and skill established a character, and character served for capital. In a few years he monopolized the contents of all the pig-pens in the city near which he resided, all that was produced by the slaughter-houses, all the lime from the gas-works, all the spent bark from the tanneries, and every tub of night-soil which came from the water-closets of a large population. He created a demand for manure so general, that the streets were traversed by men and boys with carts and handbarrows, who daily picked up the droppings from the numerous livestock which passed over the roads, and piled them snugly in fence-corners, composting them with leaves and rubbish, knowing that the great manure king would take them all. The quantity thus collected by these industrious scavengers was very large. In addition to all this, he purchased cargoes of marl, charcoal cinders from the pines, guano, and sloop-loads of manures from the city. The world within his reach seemed unable to supply his vast demand.
His cash outlay for these fertilizers was of course enormous, and has amounted to thousands of dollars per annum. It has been constantly increasing, and grows even as I write. But his faith in manure was accompanied by works. What he thus collected at so great a cost, was applied with singular shrewdness to the production of fruits and vegetables for thegreat city markets. His fields rewarded him in proportion as he enriched them. His neighbors, who, for miles around, had been astonished and incredulous at his unprecedented outlay for manure, were in turn astonished at the extraordinary quantities of fruit and truck which he dispatched to market. As he went early and largely into the growing of rhubarb, when all others were too timid even to touch it, so for years he was the only man who sent tons of it to market during a long period in which it paid extravagant profits. By skilfully regulating his crops, he secured an uninterrupted succession during the entire season; so that from the earliest to the latest period of the year he was constantly receiving large cash returns. His wagons have sometimes loaded an entire steamboat, sometimes an entire train upon the railroad. By growing asparagus, he has realized great profits. For years he commanded the Baltimore markets with his strawberries, while various other large towns depended on him for their supplies. I have been upon his thirty acres of this fruit during the height of the season, when fifty pickers were at work on ground which wore a tinge of luscious scarlet under the astonishing profusion of the crop; while thousands of quarts, under adjacent sheds, were in process of being boxed for market. Of this fruit he has sent ninety bushels to market in a single day, distributed $300 in a week among his pickers, while in the boxes to contain them his investment is $1,500. On strawberries alone this man could have grown rich.
But they are scarcely a tithe of what he has produced.Raspberries, blackberries, and all the smaller fruits have been cultivated quite as extensively. The same courageous intelligence which led him to out-strip all competitors in the application of manure, kept him awake to every improvement in fruit or vegetable as it came before the public. He not only procured the best of every kind, but bought them early, no matter how extravagant the price. Thus keeping in advance of all others, so his profits have exceeded theirs. More than once he has been cheated by the purchase of novelties of this kind, besides losing time and money in cultivating them long enough to prove the cheat; but these losses have been but as dust in the great balance of his profit.
As may be supposed, such a man could not fail to become rich. From his humble beginning of a single acre he has gone on adding farm to farm, house to house, and lot to lot, and is ever on hand to purchase more. His passion is to own land. But even so thorough a farmer as he may in the end acquire too much to be profitable.
The example thus set has had a marked influence on the population of entire townships. Men who at first, and who even for years, were incredulous of the propriety of using such vast quantities of manure, at length became converts to the example. High farming thus came extensively into vogue. Meantime the facilities for getting to market were being constantly multiplied. New fertilizers were introduced and kept for sale in all the country towns, the facility for obtaining them thus inducing a general consumption. As crops increased, so the great cities grew insize, the number of mouths to be fed enlarging with the supply of food. Under the pressure of all these several inducements, fruit and truck have been produced in quantities that cannot be estimated.
The first great impulse to its enlarged production in the neighborhood where the enterprising consumer of manure resided, to whom reference has been made, was the result of his example. His great success removed all doubt and disarmed all opposition. But even his was not achieved without unremitting industry and intelligent application of the mind. Neither his hands nor the manure did every thing. But manure lay at the foundation of the edifice: without it he would have toiled in vain to build up an ample fortune from the humblest of beginnings. As he succeeded, so let others take counsel, and have faith in manure.
ITcannot be supposed that agriculture is always a successful pursuit. On the contrary, we know it many times to be the reverse. But when one looks carefully into that branch of it which embraces fruits, especially the smaller kinds, the evidences in its favor as a money-making business multiply as we proceed. The reader must have some knowledge of the prodigious profits realized a few years since by the peach-growers in Delaware, where 800 acres were cultivated in that fruit by a single individual. At one time he was compelled to charter several steamboats during the entire season, to convey his thousands of baskets to market. From only 70 acres the owner has realized a net profit of $12,000, in one season. The instance of my relative in Ohio, mentioned in an earlier chapter, affords another illustration of what a very small orchard can be made to yield. I have known single peach-trees in gardens, in seasons when the general crop was short, producing as much as $20 each. Those who buy single peaches at the street corners in our cities, one or two for a dime, can readily understand these figures. I could point out a garden belonging to a widow, containing twelve plum-trees, from which she regularly receives $60 every year, and sometimes even more. Grapes arenever so abundant in market as to reduce the price below the point of profit.
The prices paid for pears are such as to seem absurdly high. But even when rebellion had most depressed the market, I knew a single tree to net $23 to the owner. Another grower, from three trees, annually receives $60. A citizen of New York is the owner of three pear-trees which have yielded eleven barrels, and produced $137. There is another tree in that State, seventy years old, from which, in that period, $3,750 worth of pears have been sold—enough to pay for a farm. A young orchard of four hundred trees, some eight years after planting, at two years’ crops yielded the owner $1,450. An acre of the best pear-trees, well managed, will produce more profit than a five-hundred-acre farm, without a twentieth of the care or capital.
But examples almost without number may be given, where apple-trees also have yielded from five to ten dollars a year in fruit, and many instances in which twenty or thirty dollars have been obtained. If one tree of the Rhode Island Greening will afford forty bushels of fruit, at a quarter of a dollar per bushel, which has often occurred, forty such trees on an acre would yield a crop worth four hundred dollars. But taking one quarter of this amount as a low average for all seasons, and with imperfect cultivation, one hundred dollars will still be equal to the interest on fifteen hundred per acre. Now, this estimate is based upon the price of good winter apples for the past thirty years, in one of our most productive districts; let a similar estimate be made withfruits rarer and of a more delicate character. Apricots and the finer varieties of the plum are often sold for three to six dollars per bushel, and the best early peaches from one to three dollars. An acquaintance received eight dollars for a crop grown on two fine young cherry-trees, and twenty-four dollars from four young peach-trees of only four years’ growth from the bud. In Western New York, single trees of the Doyenne or Virgalieu pear have often afforded a return of twenty dollars or more, after being sent hundreds of miles to market.
These standard fruits, requiring several years to come into bearing, are too slow for the majority of cultivators, who, like myself, need something which will pay in a year or two. The whole berry family is pre-eminently adapted to meet this demand for immediate profit. Happily for the multitude engaged in its propagation, the business cannot be overdone. Could an exact calculation be made of the money expended in the city of New York merely for the small fruits, the amount would be so enormous as to be scarcely credible, and would go far to prove the immense wealth which actually exists, in spite of the fact that thousands are suffering all the stings of poverty. Take the strawberry as a faint index of the large sums of money that are annually laid out in the different varieties of fruit. One of the most ephemeral of all fruits, only lasting its brief month, the strawberry nevertheless plays no insignificant part in therôleof our early summer business. In fact, this little berry may be said to be the prime favorite of the season. Of a delicious flavor, with just sufficient oftartness to render it agreeable, it commends itself to the taste of young and old; while its cooling properties render it highly beneficial, in a hygienic point of view, during the early heats of the dog-days. Then its cheapness places it within the reach of the poorest. It is alike welcome to the schoolboy who has a few cents of pocket money to invest in such delicacies as schoolboys are wont to indulge in; to the laboring man, after the burden and heat of the day are over; and to the wealthy, who has at his command the means of enjoyment of the most expensive kind.
The first strawberries during the season generally appear at the Broadway saloons about the middle of May, and are sold at the very modest price of fifty cents per pint basket. A placard in the window announces that a plateful, with cream, may be had for a similar small consideration. These early strawberries are from Virginia; but as they are small, with immaturity stamped upon them, it is to be presumed that there is not a very great rush for fifty cents’ worth, even by such as feel like boasting that they had eaten strawberries and cream ere the frosts of winter had well disappeared. Soon, however, New Jersey begins to give up her stores of the delicious fruit, and prices fall from fifty to fifteen, from fifteen to six, from six to five, and finally from five to three cents per pint.
Almost the entire early crop of the New York market is grown in New Jersey, and by far the largest quantity brought into the city by any one route reaches New York by the New York and Erie Railroad Company. The berries are conveyed in cartsand wagons from the gardens where they are grown to the several railroad stations, whence they find their way to the respective ferries. Great quantities, however, are conveyed in wagons direct to the ferries. Hence it is next to impossible to obtain exact information of the actual quantities brought into the city, and consumed by the inhabitants. All that can be done is to convey an approximate idea of the immense extent of the trade, leaving the reader to imagine what must be the actual quantity, since that of which authentic information can be obtained is so enormous.
The berries are largely shipped from Burlington, Monmouth, and Middlesex counties in New Jersey. Large quantities are also grown in Bergen. The Bergen County Journal says, that from data furnished, it considers 10,000,000 baskets a low estimate of the quantity sent to market in one season from that county alone. This evidently is a mistake, for, after a very close inquiry into the matter, it does not appear that any thing like that quantity has reached New York from all places where the berry is grown. Even supposing that other markets besides that of New York are indicated, the quantity named seems too large for credibility, as having been grown in a single county, however favorable the soil may be to the production of the fruit, and notwithstanding the utmost indefatigability of the growers; and the more so when the Journal adds, “that thousands, perhaps millions of baskets, have rotted on the vines.”
The opening of the Northern Railroad of NewJersey to Piermont, is another circumstance which has given an impetus to the trade. The opening took place just at the commencement of the season of 1859,—not early enough for the growers to make their arrangements for a very large crop, but just in time to enable them to take full advantage of the means of transit over the line, of the then ripening crop. Accordingly, as far as can be ascertained, 400,000 baskets were brought over the new road. This looks well for a commencement, and holds out a good promise of an enormous trade in future seasons. The section of country through which the line runs, quietly undulating, is well watered, and admirably adapted to the growth of the strawberry; and as the settlements are within easy distances of the stations, the fruit can be sent into market fresh picked and sound, retaining its full, rich flavor.
The cultivation of the strawberry is very little attended to on Long Island. On inquiry at the railroad station there, it was found that so small is the quantity brought over by it, that it was not deemed worth while to charge freight for the few parcels carried by travellers. The quantity may be safely set down at 25,000 baskets. No business is done in this fruit over the Hudson or the Harlem and New Haven Railroads.
Besides the railroads, the steamboats bring to market large quantities of the fruit. It is impossible to obtain correct statistical information of the trade from this source. The quantity brought from Keyport, N. J., alone, by two vessels, has been estimated at 1,750,000 baskets.
The following is an epitome of the business done, as far as can be ascertained:—
Say seven millions of baskets, in round numbers. Of the three and a quarter millions brought over the New York and Erie Railroad, somewhat more than one-half are from Ramsey’s and Allendale station, and the remainder from the stations on the Union Railroad and the Piermont branch. Of those brought by the Camden and Amboy Railroad, the great bulk is from Burlington county.
It is difficult to form a correct estimate of the average price at which strawberries sell; but by carefully collating the statements of the principal wholesale dealers, and taking the mean of the several prices, throughout the season, $3 per hundred baskets, by wholesale, seems to be pretty near the mark. From the wholesale dealers the article sometimes changes hands twice, before reaching the consumer, who, taking the average, may be said to have paid 3½ cents per basket, or $3.50 per hundred. Consequently, it will be seen that the retailer makes but a small profit, especially in cases where the strawberries reach him through the hands of themiddle-man, who of course manages to make his share of gain in the transfer. The wholesale dealers generally sell on commission, accounting to the growers for their sales, and reserving ten per cent. for their trouble. The largest quantity sold by any one dealer is about 300,000 baskets. The freight charge over the railroads is 12½ cents per hundred baskets.
The following figures will show what a conspicuous part this apparently insignificant berry plays in our social economics:
This is only as far as can be ascertained, but there is reason to believe that thousands of baskets of strawberries find their way into the New York markets, of which no account can be obtained, thus tending to swell the enormous expenditure on this almost the smallest of summer fruits.
It is equally difficult to ascertain the quantity of this fruit which pours into Philadelphia also, during the season, but it is probably two-thirds as great as that which goes to New York. There are numerous growers near the former city, who dispatch to it from twenty to sixty bushels each, daily.
An experienced writer on this subject estimates the consumption of strawberries in the four great cities as follows—
This estimate of the consumption of Philadelphia is a very erroneous one, as the consumption must fully equal that of New York. In 1860, no less than 173,500 quarts of strawberries passed through the gate of only one of the numerous gravel turnpikes in New Jersey, on their way to Philadelphia. This is equal to 5,442½ bushels, more than one-third of the quantity estimated as above.
He says that 8,000,000 baskets (five to the quart) have been received in New York in a season. He adds, that the crop around these four cities does not exceed 25 to 50 bushels per acre, although instances are reported where 100, and even 130 to 140 bushels have been produced on an acre, or in that proportion. The returns, therefore, vary from $100 to $800 per acre, and the prices range from $1.50 down to 12½ cents a quart. The former price is readily obtained in Washington at the opening of the season.
He thence argues that in order to supply New York and vicinity with strawberries, about 1,500 acres, of the choicest land is required, and 500 for the other cities named. This he alleges to be at least four times as much land as is either appropriate or necessary for the object, if the nature and cultivation of the strawberry were only as well understood as the raising of corn. He contends that a crop of thirty bushels of strawberries to the acre, is only about proportionate to a corn crop of ten bushels onthe same ground. He says that a strawberry plantation is seldom seen without having, after the first year, many more plants upon the ground than can obtain air or light sufficient to fruit well. The consequence is, that all our city markets are mainly supplied with inferior fruit, simply because some of the commonest kinds continue to produce a little stunted, sour fruit, even under the worst treatment. Superior, well-grown fruit will easily produce twice and four times as much to the acre, and will command prices from two to four times larger in the city markets: making the avails and the difference from the same land to be 25 bushels at 12½ cents a quart, or at least 125 bushels at 25 cents a quart, or $1,000 or $100 an acre. He lays it down that an acre ought to be made to yield 125 bushels, and that no grower should be satisfied with less.
That this yield and these profits can be realized, there are numerous evidences. Small plots of ground, thoroughly cultivated, have yielded even a double ratio. One grower in Connecticut realized $215 from strawberries raised on twenty-five rods of ground, or at the rate of $1,300 per acre. A citizen of Maine has raised them, on a small lot, at the rate of 300 bushels an acre. Another in New Jersey cleared $1,100 from three acres, and one of the agricultural societies in that State awarded the strawberry premium to a gentleman whose ground produced them at the rate of $1,222 an acre, clear profit. I have seen a crop ripening on three acres for which the owner was offered $800 as it stood, the buyer to pick and take it away at his own expense.The offer was declined, and the owner realized $1,300 clear. Mr. Fuller, of Brooklyn, has grown at the rate of 600 bushels per acre, on a small plot of the Bartlett; and by the same mode of treatment, 400 of the Triomphe de Gand.
All these returns are unquestionably the effects of high culture. Those who fail to practise it, also fail to realize such returns. The slovenly cultivator complains that his strawberries run out. But this is because he permits the weeds and grass to run in and occupy the ground. The plant has no inherent tendency to degenerate. For the last few years, immense demand has existed for Wilson’s Albany Seedling. Those at all conversant with the subject, know that plenty of room is requisite to get the greatest quantity of runners from a given number of plants—the sale being perfectly sure, all dealers give this room; the consequence is, while the plants are worth say $10 per 1000, all are fine large plants, and give a fair crop, even the first year after planting. Such plants tell their own story, and the demand continues. In a short time, prices come down; and the supply increasing beyond demand, the dealer no longer thinks it worth while to give this room expressly for the growth of plants: the beds take care of themselves, hence bear but little, and the plants furnished are always weak and spindling. These require the second year to fruit; perhaps, in the interim, new kinds are pressed into notice, and from the old beds it becomes more and more difficult to obtain strong plants, until the cry is raised that the once celebrated strawberry has run its race. Now, the question is, whetherthe same kinds under the same circumstances, that is, strong runners from strong old plants, in good soil and plenty of room, will not continue to be productive.
As this is not designed to be a treatise on the art of raising strawberries, so I shall not enlarge upon the subject. Every grower seems to have a method of his own, which he prefers over all others. There are works upon the subject, containing numerous facts with which every careful beginner should make himself familiar. But even in these are to be discovered the most extraordinary collisions of opinion,—one, for instance, recommending generous manuring, another insisting that poor ground only should be used, while a third declares that frequent stirring of the soil will of itself insure abundant crops. Amid all these antagonisms one great fact stands prominently forth, that the strawberry plant will continue to live and produce fruit under every possible variety of treatment; while another is equally conspicuous, that the better the treatment the better the return. It would be presumptuous in a novice like me to undertake to reconcile these unaccountable discrepancies of the great strawberry doctors of the country. But I have learned enough to be satisfied thatsoilhas much to do in the successful cultivation of this fruit. A variety which flourishes in one soil will be almost barren in another. Hence, in the hands of one grower it proves a great prize, but in those of another it is comparatively worthless. Without doubt it is to this cause that much of the diversity of opinion as to certain varieties, as well as to the mode of culture, is to be attributed.
Neither will I undertake to decide what sorts, among the cloud of new aspirants for public patronage which are annually coming into notice, are to be adopted as the best. One is in danger of being confused by going largely into the cultivation of a multitude of varieties. Having secured a supply of a few which he has proved to be congenial with his particular soil, he should adhere to them. Small trials of the new varieties may be safely made, but wholesale substitutions are many times disastrous undertakings. Having found out such as suit my soil, I am content to keep them. The Albany seedling grows upon it with unsurpassed luxuriance, and I shall probably never abandon it. Meantime I have tried the Bartlett, and found it a rampant and hardy grower, bearing the most abundant crops of luscious fruit. So I find McAvoy’s Superior to be a beautiful berry, and a vigorous runner. In my soil the Triomphe de Gand does not realize the extravagant promise of fruitfulness which heralded its introduction to public notice. My neighbors also complain of it in the same way. But for my own family consumption, I prefer it to any strawberry I have ever eaten. The flavor is rich and luscious beyond description, while the crisp seeds crackle between your impatient grinders with reverberations loud enough to penetrate the utmost depths of a hungry stomach. So long as my vines continue to produce only one-fourth as much as others, I shall continue to grow this unsurpassable variety. It sends off runners in amazing abundance. When grown in stools, with the runners clipped off weekly, it bears profusely ofenormous fruit; and this method, I am inclined to believe, is the true corrective of all unfriendly elements in the soil. In addition to these, I have, in common with “all the world and the rest of mankind,” the Tribune strawberries, now growing finely in pots, and carefully housed for crop next summer. Having seen them in fruit, and having also entire confidence that the association by whom they are distributed would no more spread abroad a worthless article than they would circulate a vicious sheet, so I regard the propagation of these three plants as the beginning of a new era in the history of strawberry culture.
I have very little doubt that there are specific manures for the strawberry, and one of them will probably be found in Baugh’s Rawbone Superphosphate of Lime. This article is manufactured in Philadelphia, and is made of raw, unburnt bones, which in their raw state contain one-third of animal matter, and combines ammonia and phosphoric acid in the proper proportions for stimulating and nourishing vegetable growth. I have used it as freely as I could afford to, on turnips, celery, and strawberries. On the two former its effect was very decidedly favorable. My celery uniformly exceeds that of my neighbors, both in size, crispness, and flavor, and consequently commands a higher price. But its effect on strawberries has been perfectly marvellous. On some of them the superphosphate was scattered on both sides of the row, whence, by repeated hoeing and raking, with the aid of sundry rains, its finer particles found their way to the roots. The result has been a robust growth of the plants, such ascannot be seen on any other part of my ground. They hold up their heads, their leaves and fruit-stalks some inches higher than any others, while their whole appearance indicates that they have been fed with a more congenial fertilizer than usual. Many of them have put forth double crowns, showing that they are prepared to furnish twice the ordinary quantity of fruit. So impressed am I with the superior value of this fertilizer, that I have, this autumn of 1863, manured as many rows as I could, and shall hereafter substitute it wholly for all barnyard manure. It is applied with the utmost facility, it contains the seeds of no pestiferous weeds, and its virtues are so highly concentrated that a small amount manures a large surface. It is quite possible that it may not do so well on some soils as others, but no farmer can be sure of this until he has made the trial. Hence, as that can be made with a single bag, the sooner it is undertaken the better it will be for those to whose soil it may be found congenial.
Thousands of dollars’ worth of the common wild blackberry are annually taken to the cities and sold. For these berries the price has, within a few years, actually risen one-half. The traffic in them on some railroads is immense, especially on those leading into Philadelphia from Delaware. Millions of quarts are annually sold in New York and Cincinnati. A single township in New Jersey sells to the amount of $2,000 and one county in Indiana to that of $10,000. The huckleberry trade of New Jersey is also very large. A single buyer in Monmouth county purchases sixty bushels daily during the picking season. All thesewild berries are gathered by women and children who, without these crops, would find no other employment. But they grow in every wood and swamp, in every neglected headland, while upon the old fields they enter into full possession. As they cost nothing but the labor of gathering them, so they are the bountiful means of drawing thousands of dollars into the pockets of the industrious poor. The cranberry swamps of New Jersey are as celebrated for the abundance of their products as their owners have been for permitting them to become the prey of all who choose to strip them of their fruit.
Thus the demand for even the wild berries continues to enlarge. Hence there must be sure sale for those of a superior quality. In fact, the cultivation of fruit is yet in a state of infancy; it is just beginning to assume the character its merits deserve. Probably more trees have been raised, more orchards planted, within the past ten or twelve years than in all previous time. Within a few years past it has received an unusual degree of attention. Plantations of all sorts, orchards, gardens, and nurseries, have increased in number and extent to a degree quite unprecedented; not in one section or locality, but from the extreme north to the southern limits of the fruit-growing region. Horticultural societies have been organized in all parts; while exhibitions, and National, State, and local Conventions of fruit-growers have been held to discuss the merits of fruits, and other kindred topics, until it has become the desire of almost every man, whether he live in town or country, to enjoy fine fruits, to providethem for his family, and, if possible, to cultivate the trees in his own garden with his own hands.
There are now single nurseries in this country where a million fruit-trees are advertised for sale. If every hundred-acre farm were to receive fifty trees, all the nurseries would be swept bare in a single year. The States east of, and contiguous to, the Mississippi river, would require ten thousand acres of land for three hundred years, to plant ten acres of fruit-trees on every hundred-acre farm in this portion of the Union: and this estimate is based on the supposition that all the trees planted do well, and flourish. If only a fifth of them perish, then two thousand years would be required, at the present rate of supply, to furnish the above-named quantity of orchard for every farm. Some nurseries already cover 300 to 500 acres, but even these go but a short way in supplying the immense demand for fruit-trees. How absurd, then, in the face of such an array of facts as this, the idea that our markets are to be surfeited with fruit! Thousands of acres of peach-trees, bending under their heavy crops, are still needed for the consumption of but one city; and broad fifty-acre fields reddened with enormous products, may yet send with profit hundreds of bushels of strawberries daily into the other. If, instead of keeping three days, sorts were now added that would keep three months, many times the amount would be needed. But the market would not be confined to large cities. Railroads and steamboats would open new channels of distribution throughout the country for increased supplies. Nor would thebusiness stop here. Large portions of the Eastern Continent would gladly become purchasers as soon as sufficient quantities should create facilities for a reasonable supply. Our best apples are eagerly bought in London and Liverpool, where $9 per barrel is not an unusual price for the best Newtown pippins. And, by being packed in ice, pears gathered early in autumn have been safely sent to Jamaica, and strawberries to Barbadoes. The Baldwin apple has been furnished in good condition in the East Indies two months after it is entirely gone in Boston. The world has never yet been surfeited with fruit.
FROMall these industrial antecedents, few would set me down as belonging to the class of gentlemen farmers. Generally they are men of leisure, and are always presumed to be independent; for most of us have inherited the strange idea that one must be wealthy in order to be gentlemanly. They go into the country because they are rich. I went because I was poor. Notwithstanding this antagonism between their condition and mine, it was practically, and for all purposes of human comfort, so insignificant as to disappear entirely when brought to the test.
There were neighbors within a mile of me, wealthy citizens who had purchased lands, erected splendid houses, established lawns that were gorgeous with fruits, and evergreens and flowers, while costly graperies were made to yield a winter harvest of extraordinary fruit. They sported elegant carriages, and had professional experts to look after the hot-beds in winter, and the garden in summer. My riding was done a-foot, and I was the professional genius of my own garden. Every avenue of theirs was nicely gravelled and rolled; every hedge of evergreen was trimmed into the most artistic shape. Not a day in winter but the vegetables of earlyspring were spread in abundance on their tables; yet many times they have overflowed with generous attention on my own.
I could boast of but few of these ever-present luxuries; yet with these men, some of whom were the life and charm of the neighborhood, I mingled with the most cordial association. Though there was no community of wealth, yet there was one of feeling, such as springs from education, character, and kindred aspirations after whatever is captivating in the intellectual, or good in the moral world. Our families became cemented by cordial friendships, and intercourse was enjoyed and regulated, not on the assumption that it was money that made the country gentleman, but that mind, and heart, and education were the true ingredients. Thus, with no pretensions to a position so widely coveted, I enjoyed all its advantages.
There is no such leveller as politics, short of the great leveller himself. Some of my neighbors were prodigious politicians. As most of them were sensible men, all such agreed with me; and having myself a good deal of zeal in the cause, we had at times a world of caucussing; on which occasions the most luminous discussions occurred. I have sometimes been astonished at the depth of political and financial wisdom developed on these occasions. There was little doubt, in my mind, that a cabinet of the strongest character could have been made up from among us. When I hinted this idea to one of us, he expressed his decided opinion that there was material enough for two or three. As to finance—for most of these had been successful and become rich—they talked of hundreds of millions as if they were every-day trifles. These caucusses occupied many long evenings just before election-day, when funds were to raise, candidates to be selected, tickets to print, and other equally weighty matters were to be engineered to a crisis. Sometimes, even after election, they were held, especially when it was discovered that the funds had been used up without expenses having been paid. On such occasions it was evident we had much less talk and fire, and that the cash deficit was a considerable damper on the spirits of all present. But I feel convinced that at these caucuses the nation has been repeatedly saved. As we generally carried the day at the polls, it was then unanimously agreed on “our side” that the country was safe—at least until it needed saving over again.
Somehow—I can hardly say exactly how—these gentlemen discovered that I was pretty good at writing resolutions, getting up posters that made the town ring with sensation, and that in a general way I was what one of the party—a retired grocer—called a “good egg.” The result was that I was speedily promoted to a high position in their political and social confidence. On one occasion they even did me the honor of making me secretary of a meeting which had been called to consider what had better be done with the town pump; and I have good reason to believe that had I intimated a wish to that effect, they would have honored me with the extremely responsible position of chairman. If the country had been in any actual danger, I think they would have turned to me by a sort of instinct, so great was their admiration of my ability to get up a handbill at the shortest possible notice. But having no political ambition, the security in which I have been content to vegetate will not surprise the sympathetic reader. Thus village politics are a very agreeable pastime, especially when you happen to be generally of the same mind.
Some of these country gentlemen had purchased naked fields, inclosed by decrepit fences, over which the rank poison-vine and poke-bush struggled with the wild blackberry for ascendancy, while the weather-beaten trunks of blasted apple-trees, grown ghastly by age and decay, threw up their leafless branches in the centre of the grounds. There were stones and gulleys and barren knolls denuded of the soil. There were ponds which stagnated in summer, overgrown with spatter-docks and cat-tail, and so densely populated by frogs, that even when times were most flourishing and money most abundant, the neighborhood was never without its congregation of croakers. The buildings were in some cases the architectural residuum of the men who first squatted on the soil, with low and unplastered ceilings, blackened by the smoke from huge open fireplaces. As every thing within was primitive and inconvenient, so all without was rude and squalid.
It has everywhere been the mission of the gentleman farmer to reconstruct and regenerate all this. I have seen him engaged in numberless undertakings of the kind. No one begins improvement withsuch courageous zeal; no one goes through with what he undertakes with such unflagging liberality of expenditure. Wherever he locates he leaves an almost imperishable mark. Whatever he lays his hand to he improves and beautifies.
All this is proverbial in the country, though the zeal, the efforts, and the expenditures of such men are far from being properly appreciated. I was one day standing near an old homestead, which was thus crumbling into a heap of firewood, by order of a wealthy citizen who had recently become the purchaser. A group of idle neighbors were leaning, like myself, against the old rickety fence, watching the progress of demolition, when an ancient farmer, who knew nothing beyond six per cent., broke the silence by observing—
“So it is. When a city man buys a farm and pays for it, then he begins to spend money.”
“Always so,” responded another, who belonged to the same antediluvian class; “I’ve seed it many a time.”
There was quite a general assent to this proposition among the group. The idea of the first speaker was, that because he possessed money, his sole duty was to keep it, and that gentlemen farmers were great simpletons for doing otherwise; never for a moment imagining that if for himself it were a luxury to hoard, it might be with the others a still greater luxury to spend.
In many neighborhoods, the advent of a gentleman farmer is not hailed with genuine hospitality. He is too often regarded as a foolish man, becausehe spends his money freely, even though it be scattered among the sneering crowd. However thoroughly he pulls down, however judiciously he builds up and improves, the masses neither appreciate nor comprehend. They see him exterminate the most impenetrable hedgerows with no other remark than as to what the job will cost. He drains the immemorial marsh, abolishes the spatter-docks, squelches the frogs, digs up the dead apple-trees, and brings in a huge stand of clover. The latter they can comprehend, because they know what clover is. They have been educated to believe in it; but of most of the former operations they know nothing, and having a vague idea that they cost great sums of money, condemn them as useless and unprofitable fancies.
But among the gentlemen farmers of this country are to be found its loftiest minds, its purest patriots, its greatest public benefactors. They have imported our celebrated breeds of domestic animals, sometimes at enormous cost, and in many cases have propagated them with no view to their own profit. The farm-stock of entire neighborhoods has been regenerated by this infusion of new and better blood. They build neater and more convenient barns and outhouses; they patronize new plants and tools; they ditch and under-drain the swamps and meadows; they plant vast orchards of the choicest fruits; they try costly experiments exclusively for the public good; their labors enhance the value of the lands around them; they are the animating spirits of half our agricultural societies, and, in ahundred ways, by precept and example, with a generous outlay of means, have made themselves the models of improved processes which have acted powerfully in inducing others to imitate their management.
Yet these men are sometimes pitied because their labors afford them no profit, as if the whole duty of man lay in the acquisition of six per cent. It is not important that their labor should result in profit; and if of no consequence to themselves, why should their failure to realize it be so distressing to others? It would cost them quite as much to live if they had remained in the city. The only real money difference is, that what they spend is disbursed in one place instead of another. There is the vast collateral gratification of living where the most comfort is to be obtained. They have tramped and sweltered over the hot pavements of a city long enough. Now they have broad acres and health-inspiring breezes, glorious lawns, trees loaded with abundant crops of luscious fruit, gardens whose contents would be coveted by the tenants of every city market, society enough, books, and whatever they may order the daily mail to bring them. It is perhaps the most valuable incident in the whole aim and practice of gentleman farming that profit is not the object.
But if these establish pleasant homes by restoring the waste places of the earth, it is not accomplished by merely scattering at random the contents of a well-filled purse. Taste and inclination must combine to make the whole effort effective. Take thesetwo last ingredients, substitute industry and economy for the purse, and then unite all in the person of a persevering man, penniless though he be, and a home may be established, less pretentious, it is true, but within which Love will gladly seek to fold his wings, evermore to nestle round the heart, while Time, sure in his approaches, but lavish of his compensations, will lift up the modest occupants into the sunshine of a grateful independence.
LOOKINGback upon the incidents of my city life, I confess that increasing years bring with them an increasing respect for those who do not succeed in life, as these words are commonly used. Heaven has been said to be a place for those who have not succeeded upon earth; and it is surely true that celestial graces do not best thrive and bloom in the hot blaze of worldly prosperity. Ill success sometimes arises from superabundance of qualities in themselves good, from a conscience too sensitive, a taste too fastidious, a self-forgetfulness too romantic, a modesty too retiring. I will not go so far as to say, with a living poet, that